Providing anticipatory guidance and counseling to the adolescent male.

Abstract

During a clinical day a health care provider may find it refreshing to see an adolescent male because he will be quick and easy to see with an uncomplicated physical examination and clinical history. This attitude may be in part due to the fact that adolescent males have the reputation of being nontalkative difficult to engage or not interested when it comes to clinical care. Yet adolescent males experience many preventable health issues that place them at significant risk for morbidity and mortality (see earlier article). Also despite their reputation adolescent males do want to discuss their health. The primary care provider should not shortchange the adolescent male during his medical encounter but instead should take the time to engage him in anticipatory guidance and counseling. The fact that adolescent males are seen in a variety of clinical settings including ambulatory care emergency department school-based and juvenile detention makes it important for all types of care providers to become familiar with how to counsel adolescent males and to use counseling approaches that work. To provide a rationale for effective counseling a framework is first presented to enhance the understanding of the adolescent male in context of his development family friends and community/school. Equipped with the right set of tools clinicians of either gender can have much success communicating with and counseling adolescent male patients. (excerpt)